Category Archives: News

In late 2014 and early 2015, NASA’s Kepler telescope observed the eighth planet in our solar system, Neptune. Kepler detected Neptune’s daily rotation, the movement of clouds, and even minute changes in the sun’s brightness, paving the way for future studies of weather and climate beyond our solar system.

As night falls, astronomers at Chile’s La Silla observatory are just starting their observations. Suddenly, a strange red flash of light appears on the horizon. An alert photographer is there to take a closer look! From ESO Cast.

This stirring film recounts the flight many consider to be NASA’s most daring and important. Interviews with Apollo 8 astronauts, their wives, mission control staff, and journalists take viewers inside the high-stakes space race of the late 1960s to reveal how a bold decision by NASA administrators put a struggling Apollo program back on track and allowed America to reach the moon before the Soviets.

Two scientists have laid out the basic technical specifications of a black hole powered starship. The concept embodies a surprisingly hopeful vision of the future promoted by Stephen Hawking. How feasible is it technically? How far could it take humanity one day in the distant future?

May 22nd, 2011. A powerful tornado cut a mile-wide swath through Joplin, Missouri. It was the costliest tornado disaster in history, with insured losses close to two billion dollars. It was also one of the deadliest, with 161 lives lost… and one thousand injured.

The scale of the Joplin disaster drew teams of scientists hoping to find out what made this storm so destructive. And what can be done to protect communities and people in the future. What did they learn by peering inside the violent realm of a Super Tornado?

Decades before the Hubble Space Telescope, Dr. Edwin Powell Hubble revolutionised the field of astronomy. Take a look at the life and work of this brilliant American astronomer for whom the Hubble Space Telescope is named. From Hubblecast.

Dr. Robert Stein, professor of Physics and Astronomy at Michigan State Universe has long envisioned a day when he could use supercomputer programs to “see” through the roiling surface of the sun and glimpse its dynamic interior. He describes his quest and offers ideas about what drives the violent outbursts known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, known to disrupt the electrical systems that power our civilization.

What are the odds of life on planets orbiting nearby stars? Scientists, wielding sensitive new telescopes and “big data” tools, have detected planets around thousands of stars; some Sun-like and some very different from our star. Many newly discovered “exoplanets” lie in “habitable zones,” where liquid water may support the chemistry that enables biology. How will astronomers discover if we have company in the cosmos…and where they live?